BOSTON -- Shortly after 7 p.m. Monday night, the VIP stand at the Boylston Street finish line in Boston was half-empty, but the cheers were louder than they were during the whole race.

Police officers and paramedics were clapping for the first
time while a large crowd gathered directly behind the finish line to take
pictures. Street sweepers kicked
up dust and workers were hastily disassembling the billboards of sponsors along
the route.

Far off in the distance, through the cloud of dust and
street detritus floating through the Boylston Street air, the Boston Marathon
stragglers made their final approach to the finish line. They were lone,
solitary figures emerging from the Hereford Street turn onto a canyon still
lined with a few thousand spectators cheering them on.

The clock keeping their time at the finish line had long
since turned off, but they didn't care. All they cared about was finishing the race and checking that box on their bucket lists.

The noise seemed louder than it did earlier in the day when
Meb Keflezighi, a proud immigrant to the United States from Eritrea, became the
first American man to win the Boston Marathon since 1983. The crowd seemed to
carry Keflezighi when it was chanting "USA! USA!" in a fitting burst of
patriotic fervor one year after a terrorist attack killed three
people at the finish line.

The path before runners now making their way down Boylston
Street as darkness was just taking hold was the most challenging one they faced
all day. Some walked. Some trotted. Some sprinted. Some were aided by their
fellow runners because they just could not run anymore but they promised themselves
one year ago:

They.

Would.

Finish.

The.

Race.

They came from all over and ran for all different causes, but
they were grateful all the same for the spectators that hung around until the
bitter end.

"I didn't expect this many people when I crossed," said
Chelsea White, 26, of Marblehead.

Would they do the race again? Maybe. But for now, they just
wanted to revel in the moments after the race.

Some of the stragglers, like Maia Laing and Lora Thaxton, met for the first time on the course and decided to run together as a pair.

Laing and Thaxton met while walking uphill in
Newton when they hit it off and decided to run the rest of the race together. Neither of
them had any prior marathon running experience, particularly Laing.

"It's been great. We've chatted, supported each other," said
Laing, 30, of Boston.

Thaxton did not really care what her time was.

"We were just determined to finish. We just wanted to finish
and we wanted our medals," said Thaxton, 47, of Toledo, Ohio.

Unlike many of the other stragglers, Joe O'Connor sprinted
the final stretch of the marathon through the finish line, even high-fiving
people as he crossed. A winded O'Connor said that this was second marathon he's
run with a blood clot and "he'll be damned if he's going to stop."

O'Connor, 55, of the Central Mass Striders, said he had to
be at this race and he had to finish.

"It's the best marathon there is and I've done a lot of them. Boston crowds are
fantastic. It's seven hours and they're still screaming, you don't get that
other places, trust me," said O'Connor.

"It's so important that we take back the finish line," said
O'Connor.

Kerry Sullivan of Roslindale stopped to kiss the finish
line after she crossed it on Monday night.

It was an emotional finish for Sullivan, as she did not
finish the race last year.

"All I wanted to do was get across the finish and I can't
believe it finally happened. You just go," said Sullivan.

She accidentally stopped her watch when she was kissing the
finish line so she didn't know her exact time, but she didn't care.